Woman fined, banned from social media for posting nude photos of teen girl online

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This article was published 06/02/2015 (4074 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A woman who posted nude photographs of a 17-year-old girl on Facebook for revenge has been fined, put on probation and banned from social media.

Judge Malcolm McDonald fined the woman a total of $1,500 and put her on probation for two years.

“The facts of this case involve an incident of harassment and intimidation conducted through the relatively new instruments of social media and texting,” McDonald said. “But, motivated by the age-old emotions of jealousy, anger and revenge.”

The offender entered guilty pleas last month to intimidation and criminal harassment. Charges of child porn distribution and extortion were dropped.

McDonald reserved his sentence and delivered it on Thursday.

The Brandon Sun isn’t naming the offender because it may violate a publication ban by identifying the victim.

The following events, as described in court, took place last summer.

The victim had text messaged nude pictures of herself to her former boyfriend during a game of “Truth of Dare.”

His current girlfriend, the accused who was 18 years old at the time, found the photos on his cellphone and sent them to her own phone.

She then posted three nude photos of the victim on her own Facebook page. They were up for about five minutes before she deleted them.

They would have been visible to any of the offender’s Facebook friends, Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup said at the time the woman entered her pleas.

She also sent the pictures to two of the victim’s family members and another male.

In addition, she contacted the victim via Facebook message to tell her what she’d done. She threatened to post the photos again and show them to the victim’s parents and principal if she didn’t stop talking to her boyfriend.

The offender later told police that she didn’t intend to carry out the threats.

Lonstrup recommended a sentence of nine to 12 months house arrest followed by 18 months probation. Defence lawyer Ryan Fawcett suggested a high fine and probation, otherwise house arrest of four to five months.

During sentencing, McDonald compared this case to those of Amanda Todd and Rehtaeh Parsons.

Both Canadian teens killed themselves after being bullied and harassed over sexual images of them that were shared among peers and appeared online.

The judge said he also consulted numerous decisions involving cyberbullying, many of which included the widespread distribution of pornographic images of the victim.

That includes a recent Manitoba case in which teenage brothers flattered and intimidated a 14-year-old girl into giving them sexual images of herself and performing sex acts online for them.

They then distributed the images widely to people in the community via social media.

In that case, the boys received 16 months in jail, followed by eight months community supervision and one year of probation.

But McDonald said the Brandon case differed from the above case and other cyberbullying cases.

The offender, who had no prior criminal record, was motivated by jealousy and revenge. She was not, as in other cases, an offender motivated by sexual gratification.

McDonald said the offender didn’t intend to distribute the images. Rather, her intent was revenge, and to pressure the victim into ceasing communication with her boyfriend.

There was also no evidence whether anyone had seen the images for the short time they were on Facebook, and no sign of online discussion about the incident.

As the offender is unlikely to reoffend, McDonald said, in this case a fine and probation was appropriate.

He fined the woman $1,500 in total for both charges ($1,954 with costs and surcharges) and put her on probation for two years.

During probation, she’s banned from social media, and can’t access a device capable of an Internet connection unless it’s for work or allowed by her probation officer.

The woman, who is an immigrant, is allowed to use email to communicate with family members overseas. She’d previously communicated with them via Facebook but now can’t. She’s also to provide an apology letter to the victim.

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